general problems of the 2003 Ford F-350

Vehicle stalled at 55 mph on highway.

The contact owns a 2003 Ford F-350. The contact stated that smoke began emerging from under the hood. The contact took the vehicle to the dealer for inspection where they stated that there was a hole in the fuel line and diesel fuel had leaked onto the engine. The dealer stated that the fuel line needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified. The failure mileage was 158,057.

Vehicle was accelerating onto on-ramp to interstate 90 west bound at pines road in spokane valley wa. Vehicle was driven by my wife. At approximately 30 mph their was a loud bang and noise that sounded like an exhaust leak. Vehicle was driven to the shoulder and shut off. My wife called me and I came to investigate what had happened. I turned the engine over and determined it was not an exhaust leak but that a spark plug had been blown out of the right side of the engine. It was the number 4 spark plug from the front on my v-10 gas engine. I located the bent spark plug at the approximate location of where the incident occurred. Other than being bent the threads on the plug were intact and did not appear to have been cross threaded. I had the plugs replaced at just over 100,000 miles as per the owners manual. I checked with the auto repair shop I used, (aafes auto hobby shop on fairchild afb), and informed them of what had occurred. They informed me that Ford had a technical service bulletin on this very subject. This appears to be a manufacturing defect in that replacing spark plugs should not lead to an explosive event strong enough to dent my hood from the inside. I am now expecting to have 9 more little time bombs just waiting to go off under the hood of my truck. I am just thankful that my wife hadn't yet gotten up to the speed limit of 60mph.